If you live or work in a border region, there are both advantages and disadvantages. Let me start with the main disadvantage: for national events, you are a long way away from where most of it happens. Those are the big Rand cities: if you are unlucky in The Hague, if you are lucky you ‘only’ have to travel to Utrecht. Something similar applies to the supply of jobs, which is simply larger and more diverse in the Randstad. Information about events and jobs is mainly nationally oriented. Many, even from the border regions of the Randland, are better informed about job vacancies, exhibitions and supermarket offers at home than in the regions a few kilometres across the border. There where there is a different world, different rules and laws, different retail chains and opening hours, different news, different customs and a different language. Ever agreed to meet a Fleming in the morning or afternoon? I have often experienced the miscommunication about this, because in Flanders that means before or after 12 o’clock respectively.
Main advantage in border regions of the Randland: If you want to make some effort, the potential of people, products and events is much more diverse on the other side of the border than within the Netherlands. There are often big differences. For example, a full tank of petrol across the border in Belgium is easily 10 euros cheaper than in Belgium. So petrol tourism pays off, although apparently not everyone finds it worthwhile as there are still Dutch petrol stations on the Belgian border. Furthermore, the cultural offer is much more diverse just across the border, as is the range of products and services. Be surprised by the differences!
For the economy and labour market in the border regions, national developments are leading and there is no such thing as a Euroregional labour market, with shared trends in economic growth or unemployment. In other words, developments in border regions are much more synchronised with the home country than with neighbouring border regions. This is illustrated by the attached figure on unemployment trends in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion. The solid lines show the unemployment rate of the Flemish Region, the Walloon Region, Germany and the Netherlands. The dotted lines of the same region or country colour show the unemployment rate in the respective border regions of the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion. In terms of unemployment trends, the border regions are not in sync with each other, but with their own countries. The conclusion is: there is no Euroregional labour market.